Bay area colleges join together for certified nursing apprenticeship

With the many workforce challenges companies are continuously facing in today’s society the home-based care industry has enlisted apprenticeships as a solution to their skill gaps problem. Early in September, the City College of San Francisco, UC San Francisco, and Homebridge a bay area-based home care organization teamed up together to offer an apprenticeship program built around on-the-job training that upon completion can help a participant become a certified nursing assistant by receiving their certificate through both the City College of San Francisco, UC San Francisco. Homebridge is a company that provides a model of in-home supportive services in San Francisco. The company employs 300 full-time caregivers and serves 1,000 clients in the surrounding area every year while also managing roughly around 5% of the total population of IHSS recipients in the city.

“Our workforce is in three layers,” he said. “You come in and do a basic, week-long skills development. As time goes by, your supervisor can recommend you for advancement. We currently have three tiers, and it usually takes about a year and a half to two years for a worker to make their way through all three tiers. At each of the progressive tiers, they move up about $1 on our pay scale.” 

Mark Burns, Executive Director of Homebridge

Homebridge is no rookie when it comes to apprenticeships though as the company has been involved in training programs for years, even being recognized for its award-winning 80-hour home care curriculum. The program’s schedule has participants working three days a week with one training day and one clinical supervision day. Caregivers who achieve the CAN certification can often mean a serious pay increase as entry-level caregivers can receive up around $22 an hour. On top of that participants who go on to work with local medical facilities like UCSF and Laguna Honda Hospital could see pay starting around $25 - $35 an hour. Lack of career advancement and low wages have made recruiting difficult in the past and this program hopes to address that problem directly. The partnerships’ ultimate goal is to alleviate the current national nursing shortage while also adding to the care the state currently sees. 

Read full article here: https://homehealthcarenews.com/2021/11/providers-policymakers-lean-on-training-and-apprenticeship-programs-to-beef-up-home-based-care-workforce/